A new foundation, a new step

Yesterday I was ask to lead our second prayer meeting within our international cells in my local church. There were cell leaders representing the English, Tamil, French, Phillipino and Thai cell groups. Our aim was to get together to seek God and to establish a prayer base and to unify hearts and visions once again. The international cell group in my church has grown in the past 2 years and we have not had a fix prayer group. I was very surprise that the pastor and regional leader ask me to prepare what was on my heart to the group.

I prepared a small sharing about the priveledge of being watchmen for God and I put 2 challenges for the leaders there. The first challege was that each will have a song, psalm or a word of prophecy during prayers and the second challenge is to be free to move or approach someone if they need to pray together for a common prayer request. I wanted to change the group mode into an anticipating instead of a consuming mode.

As I was sharing what the Lord put on my heart to share, I really felt that His presence moved into the room and I was just bold to say what I wanted to say. Before we even "officialize" the meeting, God was in our midst and we flowed so beautifully with His Spirit. I just wanted to give God all glory and honor for His presence and the work He has begun in all of us. Next weekend i shall be taking a topic for our women's meet God weekend. It is a weekend for women in our group who wants to know God better. A few times ago, when I attended this sort of weekend, I was so touched with God's presence and much deliverance and healing happened in our meetings.
The english group has been moving more into healing and deliverance, as we have a vast number of africans. They come from a different background and therefore needed to be delivered and healed before they can mount forward with God. I was able to be in the midst of manifestations and much grace from God. I am really excited to be in this weekend again. And after the prayer meeting our prayer book has been filled up with pictures, verses and songs !! The group felt free to move around and just be as they are before the throne of God. How wonderful !! I am so encouraged and touched that Jesus never ceases to grant us fresh manna filled with revelation. The only thing we need to do is to just listen and be still, and most importantly.... Ask!

Here is a bookmark I made for the prayer meeting to remind all of us that we are pillars. Pillars to carry others and to have a deep love for the lost. "Father erect pillars in our lives again, erect the pillar of love, hope and most of all faith in our lives and hearts again. Help us to stay watch and teach us to stay connect in unity you and with each other. Father... I pray that you wipe away all arrogance, pride and ugliness in our lives and cause us to be that beautiful pillar of grace and strenght" Amen.

Charismatic arrogance

Just a few thoughts to ponder. This past weeks I have been spending time with friends which I have not been in touch with for sometime and it just amazes me as I see a mirror of myself in them. But I have to confess that what I see in them I wish that I will never hoard on those mentality and attitude. "Father please give me a heart of compassion, of love and most of all a gracious heart"
What made me sad and mad is the fact that we charismatic have the tendancy of putting things, issue and incidents into our mental boxes and labelling them the way we want to be called. I am talking about as my title reads: "CHARISMATIC ARRONGANCE" Why do we walk around this earth and in our daily lives thinking we are far better than anyone else including other christian denomination. Our limited vocabularies consists of "Our movement", "our church" and "our people"and "our pastor".
We have to stop labelling nouns into possesive nous. Where is the respect and the kindness towards each other and to others when we speak of other christian movement ?. I am just taken a back on how small our brain has shrunk since we became charismatic. We even talk "funny" when we are amongst others. Where is the change of heart and attitide?. We lost themes to talk about when we are amongst non christians or christians from another denomination. That was a revelation I have to experience when I start a conversation with a total stranger. Let us learn to have less pride in our hearts that only allow separation and disunity. Allow this grace process to mold us be more approachable and friendly to others. How else can we tell them how great our God is? Our lifestyle is our testimony even if we are shopping, driving or cleaning and I guess we should learn to live it out more than to just talk about it.
I am so thankful that God has reveal His Holy Spirit in my life and enables me to link closer to His heart. But I am sure it saddens God's heart when we charismatic think that the Holy Trinity exclusively belongs to us and at a snap of a finger reveals and accomodate according to our needs . What makes us superior just because we have been granted to language of tongues and the gifts of the spirit purely by GRACE ? How arrogant is that !! Jesus is the only way to God and I am not denying that but do we know that God reveals His Holy Spirit to the Catholics, Baptist and Anglican and all those bible believing christian denominations?
We need to understand that the sign of tongues does not justify our salvation in God. It is not a sign if you speak in tongues that you are holier or closer to God than other denomination. That is a lie!
Unfortunately we have been bought up in a charismatic environment where we are "blindly" being fed with the liberating Truth that ironically imprison us to have a healthy mental well-being to learn to ask question and to ask the Holy Spirit for revelation. We fear questioning the so-called activities of the Holy Spirit and we have a deep fear of rejection of not fitting in least we are labelled worldly, unspiritual or even posessed. What ever happen to our common sense? We just blindly follow with the excuse "because my Pastos says so" and give our full devotion.

This song comes to mind by Paul Baloche as I write this blog "Open the eyes of heart Lord, Open the eyes of my heart, I want to see you. To see you high and lifted up. Shining in the light of your glory, pour out of your glory and love, as we sing .. holy, holy, holy.
The spirit of God is moving across this earth to find hearts that is all yield out to Him alone.

Defining colors and theme

My theme is dark purple, combine with a slighly lighter scale of rich purple and creme.
Will combine it with dark furniture and highlight it with beige and silver color accessories.
I shall discuss the colors with the painter.

This week has been really hectic as I hopped into one furniture shop to another, my brother and I even drove all the way to Germany to view their interior and to get ideas. It is a real challenge on how to decorate the style I would love and yet find something lavish, afforable, stylish and long lasting.

While going through all the furniture stores from all price categories, the high luxurious shops down to Ikea and even cheaper than Ikea. I realise that I wanted something long lasting and has a touch of style that I am able to combine well with other accesoires. It should not be too generic but still adaptable. Because I have many different taste within me, I really needed decide what I want to focus on. For years I have put aside my dreams when I see beautiful furnitures in show rooms as I knew I needed to firstly find out where my heart wants to settle in. Finally I can take out gifts from my friends, many still gift wrapped and put away for many years to show them off in the new place.

You know what is really really great about living alone in your own space? Is to able to decide for yourself what your heart desires and don't have to justify to anyone else. As a single person, you can spend your money on what you want. You can choose crazy colors !! afterall you need to face that colors daily. It is a process of finally listening to my inner most heart and know if that is really what I want. I am not a person who lavish much on myself and think systematically and weight each desicion carefully.

It is the making of the new me and God is just bringing out more out of me. So each time i visit those overwhelming furnitures stores, I ask the Lord to come with me and make me notice great quality with great bargains. I pray for favor and put my budget before the Lord and as I go shopping with the Lord for other items, I trust my Father's taste. He has a great taste. So God is my invisible interior advisor. He is just great.

Well.. I am just letting you guys peek on some of my choices of colors and will add more photos when as I venture into this project....

Some impression of Halong Bay

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